Memories of three men: One great, one less so, and one immortal

Significant: Enoch Powell's influence on politics and political thought is arguably greater than that of any other Member of Parliament in the past century

The centenary of one great man's birth coinciding with the bicentenary of another's has prompted a gathering together of memories of Enoch Powell.

As I never knew him, never shook his hand, and have judged him only by the speeches I read during his lifetime, it seemed prudent for me to refrain from writing about him until others more knowledgeable than I had published their reviews of the new book of essays on his life.

I was delighted to find these reviews - certainly those I have read - doing him justice as a man of rare honesty, indeed of such integrity that many commentators are today reluctant to describe him as a politician.

Most Englishmen now do not see him as the blatant racist his enemies lambasted, the left-wingers of those days excoriated, and his leader, Edward Heath, condemned.

His fears have proved to have been based on true facts and disciplined logic, and although his prediction for the end of the twentieth century as bringing the proportion of non-whites in England up to one in ten was inaccurate (in fact it was a little less than one in twelve), twelve years later it is one in eight.

If Heath could have put his personal prejudice to one side, and had adopted a cool and objective approach to what should have been a short-term media storm triggered by an historian's overvaluation of editorial scholarship and of certain editors' basic common sense, the nation would not have lost the services of a brilliant man who had so much to offer, so much we could not afford to lose.

Former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath had serious limitations and was very sensitive to rank

But Heath had serious limitations. I did not shake his hand either, but that was because, as I stood by the aircraft steps to welcome him after he landed at my airfield, he ignored my salute (he was then a cabinet minister) and brushed past me as he strode towards his car.

As a colonel during the war he knew, of course, how officers behave, and how important it is to act impeccably when junior ranks are present and watching, but he was ever aware of just how important he was.

Heath was sensitive to rank. At one important political dinner he sat on the right of his hostess, a beautiful and intelligent woman of high rank in the peerage, and from arriving at the table until leaving it, while talking across the table and to the guest on his right he spoke not a word to her, neglecting even to indicate he had heard her attempts to open a conversation.

Memories of that time often bring into contrast the two men, the great and patriotic Powell whose honesty destroyed his career, and the lesser man who knowingly led his country into a surrender masquerading as a free trade agreement. Powell as a brigadier, the youngest in the British Army, outranked Colonel Heath, and it is tempting to believe that this may have been influential in Heath's betrayal of him.

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Powell's non-existent racism has now been laid to rest. It was always an irrational charge no one willing to look at the record of his time in India would have entertained, and it was based on one small misquoted section of a single speech.

He did not forecast that blood would flow in British streets. Remembering Virgil's words, bella, horrida bella, et Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno, he confessed to being filled with foreboding and seeing the River Tyber foaming with much blood. Note that he did not use a translation of the first three words, 'wars, terrible wars'.

But what is racism? Who is racist? If a casual observer notes that around one quarter of Nobel Prizewinners have Jewish ancestry, and implies that this may indicate a significant racial difference, is this racist?

Issue of rank: Powell as a brigadier, the youngest in the British Army, outranked Colonel Heath

In the 19th century the natives of a small group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe triggered an industrial revolution immense in its consequences, ruled the world's oceans, and created and administered the greatest empire history has ever known. If someone suggested that these natives, whose achievements were incontestable, had as a race some superior abilities, would he be a racist?

The bicentenary I mentioned earlier is of a man who, by today's standards and popular acclaim, was so Politically Correct as to become an icon for socialism and an educational tool for Marxists. Could he be a racist? He wrote this of the Anglo-Saxon race:

“The Saxons themselves were a handsome people. The men were proud of their long fair hair, parted on the forehead; their ample beards, their fresh complexions, and clear eyes. The beauty of the Saxon women filled all England with delight and grace.

“I have more to tell of the Saxons yet, but I stop to say this now, because under the Great Alfred all the best points of the English-Saxon character were first encouraged, and in him first shown. It has been the greatest character among the nations of the earth.

Wherever the descendants of the Saxon race have gone, have sailed, or have otherwise made their way, even in the remotest regions of the world, they have been patient, persevering, never to be broken in spirit, never to be turned away from enterprises on which they have been resolved. In Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the whole world over; in the desert, in the forest, on the sea; scorched by a burning sun, or frozen by ice that never melts; the Saxon blood remains unchanged. Wheresoever the race goes, there law and industry, and safety for life and property, and all the great results of steady perseverance, are certain to arise.”

I am aware of nothing to suggest that Enoch Powell did not share the views of Charles Dickens, but such pride in ancestry does not make a man a racist.